Annie (Alison Barry), Syracuse's young daughter, researches Irish folklore and tells her father that Ondine is a "selkie," a sort of washed-ashore mermaid who can return to the water only after finding her lost "seal coat."

In “For One Who Has Lost Herself,” the price is the awful truth that comes after the end of a story we already pretty much knew; that is, what happens to the selkie after the young man who stole her sealskin has vanished.

“The childish, romantic story of “Ondine” is about a West Cork fisherman named Syracuse (Colin Farrell) who one day snags a lovely, breathing young woman in his net. This comely catch, who gives her name as Ondine (Alicja Bachleda), isn’t a mermaid, but might be another, more locally familiar sort of mythic beast, a selkie: a woman who is also a seal.”